Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba during a press conference regarding Navy Day in New Delhi, on Dec 1, 2017.

New Delhi: Addressing the annual press conference ahead of Navy day, Admiral Lanba said Chinese PLAN submarines had been regularly visiting the Indian Ocean since 2013 and there were two deployments alternately - a conventional submarine and a nuclear propelled submarine.

"They may say it is for anti-piracy operations but it is an odd task to give to a submarine." He said a submarine was not a suitable platform for anti-piracy operations and that India had carried out a threat assessment.

"When you have submarines in your area, you do carry out threat assessment... So we did carry out a threat assessment," he said.He added that Chinese Naval ships had been coming to the Indian Ocean since 2008.At one point in August this year, he said at least 14 Chinese Naval ships were present in the Indian Ocean.

New Delhi: The use of Gwadar port, a commercial port in Balochistan, by China in the future to dock its naval ships would pose a security challenge for India, Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said on Friday. "If Chinese naval ships are to be based in Gwadar in future, it will pose security challenge to us, which we will have to look at and mitigate," the Navy chief said but refused to comment any further.

"Chinese commercial companies have acquired majority stakes in the port. I am not aware of any Chinese submarines or ships operating from there. There is no information available that Gwadar will be a naval port for the Chinese Navy. It is a commercial harbour, part of the CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor)," Lanba said at an annual press conference ahead of the Navy Day on December 4.

Gwadar is a deep-sea port in the Arabian Sea in Balochistan province of Pakistan, close to Iran. China, which presently has around 80 per cent of its oil imports coming through the Strait of Malacca, has been looking at the port to provide an alternate route.